Highlight

International Investment Instruments: A Compendium contains a collection of international instruments relating to foreign direct investment (FDI) and transnational corporations (TNCs).
The collection is presented in six volumes. The first three volumes were published in 1996. Four years later, volumes IV and V were published; volume VI brings the collection up to date. This volume also includes a number of instruments adopted in earlier years but not included in the previous volumes.
The Compendium is meant to be a collection of instruments, not an anthology of relevant provisions. Indeed, to understand a particular instrument, it is normally necessary to take its entire text into consideration. An effort has been made, therefore, to reproduce complete instruments, even though, in a number of cases, reasons of space and relevance have dictated the inclusion of excerpts.
The UNCTAD secretariat has deliberately refrained from adding its own commentary to the texts reproduced in the Compendium. The only exception to this rule is the boxes added to each instrument. They provide some basic facts, such as date of adoption, date of entry into force, status as of 1995 and 1999 respectively, and, where appropriate, signatory countries. Also, in the case of agreements signed between the EFTA countries or the EC countries with third countries or regional groups - where only a few samples of the types of agreements with investment-related provisions are included - a list of similar agreements signed by these two groups of countries has been included to give an indication of the range of countries involved in these types of agreements. Moreover, to facilitate the identification of each instrument in the table of contents, additional information has been added, in brackets, next to each title, on the year of its signature and the name of the relevant institution involved.